The stewardship of the kingdom, Luke 19:11-27

If you were here last week then you will remember that we looked at the conversion of Zaccheus in the beginning of this chapter.  Zaccheus was a man of small stature, but great faith.  Although he had been a man that employed wicked, evil business practices before his conversion, after he met Jesus he was transformed into a man that used his unrighteous wealth for the kingdom of God. 

 Jesus said about Zaccheus that salvation had come to his house, because he too was a son of Abraham.  Now last week I explained that Jesus used the phrase “son of Abraham” not to indicate that he was Jew.  Practically everyone there was a Jew, including Zaccheus, but what Jesus is indicating that Zaccheus’ salvation was the result of something that was associated with Abraham in particular. 

The Apostle Paul makes it clear that faith was the defining characteristic of Abraham. Gal. 3:6-7 says “Even so Abraham BELIEVED GOD, AND IT WAS RECKONED TO HIM AS RIGHTEOUSNESS. Therefore, be sure that it is those who are of faith who are sons of Abraham.” So saving faith is the characteristic associated with Abraham. Paul is quoting from Genesis when he says that Abraham believed God and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.  So righteousness and salvation, comes as a result of faith.  I would hope most of us would accept that doctrine.

But what exactly is faith? Listen, faith is believing the promises of God and then acting upon them.  Let me say that again.  Faith is believing the promises of God and then acting upon them.  Saving faith is not just believing that God exists.  The Bible says that the devils believe in God and tremble, yet they are not saved.  Faith is not an emotional desire, it is not wishful thinking.  Faith is not the power of positive thinking.  Saving faith is acting upon the promises of God.  Listen to what Heb. 11: 8 says, “By faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed by going out to a place which he was to receive for an inheritance; and he went out, not knowing where he was going.”  See, his faith was characterized by action. Abraham believed God and he acted upon that belief, trusting that what God promised He was able to provide.

So Zaccheus was a child of Abraham because he was saved by faith.  And how was his faith evidenced? How was his faith acted out?  By the fact that he was willing to give half his money to the poor and pay back everyone he had defrauded with four times as much.  Zaccheus showed true faith by his willingness to do from his heart what Jesus never told him to do.  That is in direct contrast to the rich young ruler of the last chapter, that thought he was a child of Abraham by birth, thought that he was righteous, and yet his unwillingness to divest himself of his riches in order to follow Christ revealed that his heart was selfish and unrepentant.  The rich young ruler went away sad, because he went away unsaved. Oh, he believed in God.  But he did not have faith in God to do what Jesus asked him to do.  That’s what James is talking about in James 1 when he says, I’ll show you my faith by my works.  Zaccheus’ actions were the evidence of his faith.

Now all of that is by means of introduction and is very important to understanding our text today.  Because as you can see in vs. 11, Jesus is still in Zaccheus’ house.  So after declaring Zaccheus a son of Abraham, declaring that he was saved, Jesus is going to illustrate that principle of obedient faith with a parable.  Now there is another purpose to the parable that is stated by Luke; that is, that Jesus used this to refute the common thinking that existed among the disciples, who supposed that the kingdom of God was going to appear immediately because He was going to Jerusalem.  Now that is the obvious purpose to the parable.  But as I have just pointed out, there is another very important lesson contained in this parable as well, which is how obedient faith is to be worked out in the meantime.

So let’s consider the stated purpose first; that the kingdom of God is going to be delayed.  Jesus uses a story about a nobleman that receives a kingdom in a distant country.  Now this would have been a familiar scenario for the crowd assembled there.  Jesus made the parable up, but He may have used an actual historical situation to base it on that they would have undoubtedly been familiar with.  History tells us that just before this time, there was a nobleman named Archelaus, who was one of three sons of King Herod, who had inherited kingship of the area surrounding Jericho where Zaccheus lived.   After his father's death Archelaus went to Rome to receive the sovereignty from Caesar over this part of his father's kingdom. Confirmation by the Roman emperor was necessary, because though Israel was Herod's empire, in reality it was part of the Roman Empire.  However, Archelaus was hated by the Jewish population.  And so the Jews sent a delegation to Rome to dispute Archelaus's claim to kingship.  But nevertheless the emperor decided to  appoint him as ruler over half of his father's kingdom.

Now that is the historical context.  The people would have very easily identified with the story.  But the obvious point that Luke says that Jesus is making is that the king first receives the kingdom in a distant country, and then he goes back to be officially appointed as king.   In other words, there is going to be an extended time when the king is absent.  He comes to his kingdom, and then he goes back to receive the kingdom which might have been like an official public ceremony and then one day in the future he comes back again to take his kingdom and demands a reckoning with those he left in charge and those that had opposed his kingship.

But this idea of the kingdom being delayed would have been a foreign concept to the disciples and whatever religious leaders were in attendance that day.  Both Jesus and John the Baptist before Him had been going around the country preaching “repent for the kingdom of God is at hand.”  That was the Messianic message that everyone had been wanting to hear for thousands of years.  The followers of Jesus believed that Jesus was in fact the Messiah.   The rabbis and Pharisees and the religious leaders of Israel were speculating whether or not Jesus could be the Messiah.  Most of them tended to believe that He was not.  But the massive crowds that were following Him largely because of His miracles wanted to believe that He was the Messiah.  In just a few days they would congregate in Jerusalem as He rode into town on a donkey during Passover week, and they would greet Him and celebrate Him as the Messiah.

The problem was that their Messianic theology did not match the reality of the scripture’s prophecies.  Their theology centered on a literal kingship, the physical reinstatement of the throne of David that the Messiah would sit on.  And they believed that He would overthrow the Roman yoke, defeat all their enemies, and Israel would become the greatest, most favored nation on the earth.  They believed they would enjoy unrivaled peace and prosperity in this kingdom as God would rule and reign through the Messiah sitting on the throne in Jerusalem. 

That’s why they did not understand all the talk about dying and crucifixion and that the Son of Man would suffer and be delivered up in Jerusalem.  Even the disciples did not understand it.  They would be arguing right up to the point of entering the Garden of Gethsemane about who was going to get to sit on Jesus right and left hands on thrones when Jesus received His kingdom.  And that is why both the disciples and the crowd would all fall away from Him in His moment of suffering.  Suffering did not fit into their theology. 

And you know what?  Suffering doesn’t fit into most modern evangelical’s theology either.  Modern evangelical theology has distanced itself from many doctrines so clearly presented in the Bible like judgment, hell, suffering, tribulation and sacrifice.  I believe that is why when in the end of the ages, just before Christ returns in the clouds which Jesus spoke about in Mark 12, that there will be a great falling away, which is going to be so deceitful that if it were possible it would deceive even the very elect.  I don’t want to start an eschatological debate with anyone, but I believe that the church is going to go through the refiner’s fire of tribulation.  If you follow the news, then you should understand that that fire is already kindled.  So you better make sure that your theology is founded on the  truth of God’s word and not some book you read or some movie you watched. 

So Jesus tells them this parable to illustrate the correct eschatology.  And that eschatology has not changed in two thousand years by the way.  We are still living  in the “in betweens,” the time between His first coming and His second coming.  So let’s consider then what our responsibility is in this time in between.  That is I think the real point to this illustration.  Zaccheus’s utter transformation was the catalyst for this parable.  His willingness to respond from the heart with even more than the law required him to do revealed that he had been truly saved.  The law required that he give his tithe to the temple which would have been about 23 percent if you added everything up, and he said I’ll give half; 50% of all that I have.  The law said if you defrauded someone you were to repay them twice as much, and Zaccheus said I’ll even double that.  That was illustrative of the faith of Abraham.  It’s illustrative of saving faith.  It’s proof that his heart has been transformed from greedy to giving.  From selfish and prideful to loving and humble.  Those are the characteristics of someone who has been saved.

Jesus illustrates that kind of saving faith with this story.  Now before the nobleman goes back to officially receive the kingdom, he calls 10 servants and gives them a mina each.  Now a mina is equal to 100 days wages.  And he says to them, “Do business with this until I come back.”  Now there are three types of people that are represented in this parable.  Three types but only two categories.  And I believe every one of us here today are represented by one of these three types of people.  The first group is the faithful slaves.  That is the guy that made 10 minas and the guy that made 5 minas.  They both are in the faithful category.  They were obedient to the king and give him a return on their stewardship.  The second category is the citizens that hated the king and said “we will not have this man rule over us.”  These are the ones in flagrant rebellion.  But the third category is the guy who did nothing with his mina.  He is not any different from the second category actually.  He isn’t in open, flagrant rebellion, but he reveals in his unfaithfulness that he was not willing to have the king rule over him either.  Now as I said, I believe the Bible makes it clear that there are really only two categories of people in the world.  Those that are saved, and those that are lost.  There is no almost saved, no sort of saved, you cannot serve God and mammon.  You are either in the kingdom or you are not.  So even though there are three categories in this parable, there are really only two types of people.

And this is verified in scripture by the way.  The most obvious parallel to this is an almost identical parable known as the parable of the talents found in Matthew 25 vs. 14.  The parables are very similar.  But the scripture is clear that they are in fact different parables given at different times in different places, even though a lot of the verbiage is the same.  A talent by the way is a unit of money.  It amazes me how people interpret that parable as God giving them talents like singing, or art, or acting or whatever.  And then pastors will give seminars on how to discover your talents.  Then they make the mistake of equating some natural or physical talent to a spiritual gift.  And the next thing you know, the church looks like a version of American Idol. 

Let me digress here for just a minute and say that your natural talent and your spiritual gift are not always interchangeable.  In fact, I’ve found that God may give you a spiritual gift that is not something that you are naturally talented in.  Your natural talent may actually hinder you from doing the work of God.  It’s too easy for pride to get involved when you have a natural talent.   A spiritual gift is when God equips you to do something by the power of the Holy Spirit that you could not do in the flesh.  Got that?  It has nothing to do with whether or not you think you are talented in a particular area.  It has something to do with being obedient to do what God wants you to do when you can’t do it in your flesh, when it doesn’t come easy for you. 

Paul is a great example of that.  This was an extremely talented, intelligent man.  But  Paul said all those things that had been gain for him, he now counted them but rubbish.  And God gave him a thorn in the flesh, he said, to keep him from exalting himself.   It’s commonly believed that the thorn in the flesh was a condition of near blindness, marked by a running infection in his eyes.  And so it was said by the churches that in physical appearance Paul was contemptible, but his letters were weighty and strong.  Now that characterizes a man that did not rely on natural talent, or charisma, or good looks, or great physical abilities, but relied on the wisdom and the power of God and was able to do amazing things.

But back to Matthew 25, in the parable of the talents you see an almost identical situation to the parable in Luke. Three men, each of them given a unit of money.  And at the reckoning two are rewarded by their master, but one hid his talent.  So when the slave tells his master that he hid his talent in the ground, the master’s response is to say, “You wicked, lazy slave, you knew that I reap where I did not sow and gather where I scattered no seed. 'Then you ought to have put my money in the bank, and on my arrival I would have received my money back with interest.  'Therefore take away the talent from him, and give it to the one who has the ten talents.”  But here is where the text is different.  Jesus says in Matthews parable,  "Throw out the worthless slave into the outer darkness; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”  See, Jesus reveals in Matthew’s parable that this unfaithful slave is considered as an unsaved person.  He shows by his actions that he is not really saved.  So in the parable of the talent there are only two possible categories; either saved or unsaved.  Either of the faith, or of the faithless.

Now let’s go back to our text in Luke and look at the first type of person that Jesus mentions.  And that is the flagrantly rebellious found in vs.14.  These are the ones who send out a delegation saying, “We do not want this man to reign over us.”  First of all, note that they are citizens of his kingdom.  The fact that they do not like their king, or want to serve their king, or respect their king, does not invalidate the fact that he is still their king.  You know, I may not like whoever happens to be in the White House from time to time.  I may not agree with them, or even respect them, but that doesn’t change the fact that they are the President of the United States, and I am a citizen of the United States.  And as such I am subject to the laws of the United States.  In fact, Peter tells us this is the Lord’s will.  1Pet. 2:13-14  “Submit yourselves for the Lord's sake to every human institution, whether to a king as the one in authority, or to governors as sent by him for the punishment of evildoers and the praise of those who do right.”  We are told to pray for those that are in authority over us.  We are not told to rebel against authority.  We are told to pay our taxes.  Now that is even to an ungodly king or ungodly president.

But the point Jesus is making here is that even people that hate God and rebel against His rule are a part of His kingdom in the sense that they belong to Him.   I find it ironic that the very breath with which these God haters rail and rant against God is given to them by Christ. Col. 1:16-17 says,  “For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities--all things have been created through Him and for Him.  He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.” 

Yet Jesus says in this parable that even though they were part of His kingdom, they rebelled against Him and did not want to submit to His rule over them. John 1:10-12 “He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name.”

So even though they do not accept Him as God, nor worship Him as God, yet they will still give an account to Him one day.  The Bible says that one day every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.  But for that confession to be effective, it must be a confession of faith.  That which is seen is not faith.  When they are brought before the Great White Throne judgment, and they see the Lamb of God who was slain, the Savior that they rejected, they will believe then.  But it will be too late. 

Jesus says as much in the last verse of the parable in vs. 27 "But these enemies of mine, who did not want me to reign over them, bring them here and slay them in my presence." This is correlated in Rev. 20:12, 14-15 “And I saw the dead,(that is the unsaved, spiritually dead) the great and the small, standing before the throne, and books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged from the things which were written in the books, according to their deeds. ...  Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire.  And if anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.”

Now the second type of person in the parable is that of the faithful.  Jesus says that the slaves were each given mina.  I believe that what the mina represents is not money or talents or even necessarily time, but the gospel – the full counsel of the word of God.  In John chapter one Jesus is referred to as the Word.  It says the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God.  And all things were made by Him.  And then skipping down it says, “and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.”  So the gospel is nothing less than all the scripture, all the Word of God.  Jesus said in John 6:63, the words that I have spoken unto you, they are spirit and they are life.  The Word of God is the greatest treasure, the gospel, the power of God unto salvation.  It is the means by which the Holy Spirit teaches us and guides us.  It is the Word of Life.

So these faithful slaves then represent those that are faithful to the Word of God.  They have accepted it by faith, they are obedient to the Word by faith, and they bring about fruit in keeping to their measure of obedience.  Now to prove that I remind you of the parable of the sower.  I’m sure you are all familiar with that parable found in Matthew 13.  Jesus says a farmer went out to sow seed.  And some seed fell on good ground, some on rocky ground, some by the hard packed road, and some fell among thorns.  You know the story, I hope. I won’t go through it all.  But Jesus gives an explanation, because the disciples didn’t know what it meant.  And Jesus explains that the seed was the Word of God.  And the seed which fell on good soil produced a crop, some one hundred fold, some sixty and some thirty.   See, the crop is the evidence of their salvation.  The Word of God enters into an obedient, faithful heart and produces fruit. 

And then look at the reward.  The king says to the one who returned ten minas, “Well done, good slave, because you have been faithful in a very little thing, you are to be in authority over ten cities.”  And to the one who returned five minas, he said, “And you are to be over five cities.”  Listen, do you realize that in the eternal glory we will rule and reign with Christ?  That those who shared with Him in the fellowship of His sufferings here will also share with Him in His glory?  The point here is to be laying up treasures in heaven, where moth and rust does not corrupt.  God has promised to reward those who are faithful.  So it behooves us to remember what Paul says in 2Cor. 9:6 “Now this I say, he who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.”  Listen, there will  be varying degrees of reward in heaven.  Eternity lasts a long, long time folks.  I hope that you are investing in heaven.  Jesus’ last words to the church is found in Rev. 3: 21 “He who overcomes, I will grant to him to sit down with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne.”

Finally, let’s look at the unfaithful slave.  He said, “Master, here is your mina, which I kept put away in a handkerchief; for I was afraid of you, because you are an exacting man; you take up what you did not lay down and reap what you did not sow.”  The Greek word that is translated as exacting there is actually the word that we get austere from.  It means harsh, severe, stern.  This guy is revealing what he really thinks of his Master.  He doesn’t like Him.  He doesn’t want to submit to Him.  He doesn’t really want this man to rule over him.  He thinks he is too strict, too harsh.

The unfaithful slave says, you collect what you did not deposit, you reap what you did not sow.  In other words, he thinks that God is over reaching his authority.  God doesn’t really own everything.  It’s kind of like the man who thinks that God can have my ten percent tithe, but the 90 % belongs to me.  God can have an hour or so on Sunday mornings, but  the rest of the week belongs to me. 

There is even a bit of licentiousness in there.  There is a hint of antinomianism couched in this rebuttal by the unfaithful slave.  He says, you know, grace means that I don’t have to be concerned about works.  You do the works with or without my help.  You reap where you didn’t sow.  You have the power that is supposed to be doing everything, and so I can do nothing.  He excuses his disobedience by claiming that his master is so powerful that he doesn’t need his help.

Listen, I think that every generation has it’s pet heresy.  There may be no new heresy under the sun, the devil just keeps repackaging them for each subsequent generation.  But I think that one of the pet heresy’s of the 21^st century is that of antinomianism.  It’s the belief that the grace of God is so overpowering, so encompassing, that it eliminates every human responsibility.  And so there is no sin, there is no need to confess your sins, and there is no human responsibility.  And though very few people are brash enough to come out and say it quite that frankly, the modern day false prophets are all teaching a version of it.  Joel Olsteen, Joseph Prince, Joyce Meyer, they all have taken the prosperity gospel to it’s obvious, inevitable conclusion, and that is that God only wants you to be happy and prosperous and successful and healthy and all you have to do is have some form of faith and God removes all sin from you forever, and puts all the resources of heaven at your personal disposal and you never have to suffer, you never have to sacrifice your personal happiness, you never have to repent, or ever have anything bad happen, it’s all good, all the time.  And people buying into that false doctrine by the thousands and they are being deceived that salvation doesn’t require surrender of this world, salvation doesn’t require repentance, salvation doesn’t require obedience, salvation doesn’t require sacrifice, salvation doesn’t require morality, and salvation doesn’t require righteousness.

Listen, Jesus uses this parable to teach that salvation is marked by obedience from the heart, and obedience is evidenced by your deeds.  I could give you dozens of scriptures that emphasize that.  But let me just quote a few quickly. James 1: 22 “But prove yourselves doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves.”  James 4:17 “Therefore, to one who knows the right thing to do and does not do it, to him it is sin.” Matt. 12:50 "For whoever does the will of My Father who is in heaven, he is My brother and sister and mother.” Rom. 2:13 “for it is not the hearers of the Law who are just before God, but the doers of the Law will be justified.” James 2:17 “Even so faith, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself.” 1John 2:3 “By this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments.”  And 1John 3:7  “Little children, make sure no one deceives you; the one who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous.”

Don’t be deceived folks.  We can’t always tell the wheat from the tares.  But the Lord of the harvest will be able to tell the wheat from the tares, because it will be obvious by their fruit.  I don’t know how many people are deceived into thinking that they can be right with God and not have to be obedient to what He commands.  But I’m afraid that many people today fall into that camp.  Jesus said in Matthew 7, “many people will say to Me in that day, “Lord, Lord, did we not do all these things in your name?”  And He will say unto them, “'I never knew you; DEPART FROM ME, YOU WHO PRACTICE LAWLESSNESS.”

Listen, I think that this unfaithful steward thought that he would be ok when the king came back.  He was presuming upon the grace of God.  He didn’t think faith was much more than a feeling.  He thought God was supposed to serve him, he didn’t think it was necessary for him to serve God.  But he failed to realize that obedience is the means to sanctification.  And Hebrews 12: 4 says that without sanctification, no one will see the Lord.  Sanctification is the fruit of your salvation.  It is the working out of your salvation with fear and trembling.  It is what Zaccheus was doing when he promised to make restitution to all he had wronged.  It was a zeal for righteousness that came out of a transformed heart.

Jesus says about that unfaithful slave, that they will take away what he has and give it to him that had 10 minas.  And when they questioned the wisdom of that, Jesus gave them the principle; “I tell you that to everyone who has, more shall be given, but from the one who does not have, even what he does have shall be taken away.”  This is the principle of spiritual life.  The one who has real life, abundant life in Christ, life through the Spirit, new life, the life that brings forth fruit, that produces growth, the one who has that kind of life, more shall be given to him.  At the Bema seat judgment, when God rewards the faithful, he will give those that were faithful more responsibility.  He will give those faithful in little things, great things.  Oh, the value of being faithful in little things. Zech. 4:10 says, “For who has despised the day of small things?”  Be faithful in little things, ladies and gentlemen, if you want to be found faithful at the judgment. 

But for the one who does not have that kind of life that produces fruit, that evidences new life, that is born of the Spirit and by the power of the Spirit works the works of God, that is obedient to the Word of God, to that person that does not have spiritual life, even the life that he has will be taken away.  His physical life will end and all that he has worked for here on this earth will not serve him in the next.  And his spiritual life will be forever destroyed.  He will be forever separated from God because he said “I will not allow this Man to rule over me.”  He placed himself on a higher pedestal than God.  Everything that he worked for will be taken from him and he will be cast into the Lake of Fire. 

Well, the question I would ask you in closing is; if your spiritual life was to be judged by the evidence, would you be counted among the faithful or the unfaithful?  Are you gladly responding to the rule of God over your life, being about the business of the kingdom until Christ returns, looking forward to your reward?  Or are you rejecting the absolute rule of Christ?  Have you tucked away a bit of religion that you hope is enough, presuming upon the grace of God, while indulging in your sin?  I hope that you are in the first group.  But if you honestly examine yourself in the light of God’s word and you recognize by the conviction of the Holy Spirit that you are not living a life of surrender to Christ’s rule, then I beg of you, surrender yourself to Him today.   Call upon Him while He may be found.  Today is the acceptable day of salvation.  Today Jesus is calling you.  I pray you will answer that call by repenting of your sins, and faith in Jesus Christ as Lord, resulting in obedience. 

Short in stature, but long on repentance, Luke 19:1-10

If you have been with us very often during these last two years that we have been preaching through the book of Luke, then you will recall that the reoccurring theme of Jesus’ ministry was the preaching of the kingdom of God; what it means, what are the requirements and how to enter it.  And one of the major components of entering the kingdom of God is that a person must be desperate.  They must have reached the point of being sick of their sin, the point of mourning over their sin, and desperately hungering and thirsting for righteousness. They have to have come to the realization that they are absolutely lost and without hope in this world. These principles were clearly presented in one of Jesus first recorded messages; the Sermon on the Mount.

 Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount; blessed are the poor in  spirit; that is those that recognize that they are spiritually bankrupt, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.  Blessed are they that mourn over their sin, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the humble, for they shall inherit the earth.  Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.  All of those statements speak of the requirements of entering or being accepted in the kingdom of God.  You have to humble yourselves,  realize your spiritual bankruptcy, that you have no claim on the kingdom of God, mourn over your sin, that’s true repentance, and then hunger and thirst after the righteousness that only the grace of God can provide, by transference of your sins to Jesus, and His righteousness to you.  That is salvation in a nutshell.

For three years Jesus has been preaching this message of repentance, that the kingdom of God is at hand. For 3 years God’s invitation to enter the kingdom was extended to all who would come.  “Whosoever will may come.”  But now Jesus is reaching the end goal of His earthly ministry.  He is almost at Jerusalem.  It is the Passover season, and in the providence of God Jesus Himself will be offered as the Passover Lamb for the sins of the world.  The Passover symbolically represented that Jesus’ shed blood  each person must put on the doorposts of their house, so that they might escape death.  He is resolutely going to offer Himself at Calvary’s cross as a sacrifice for sins.  And this will happen in just a few days.

And so it is in that context that we come across this story today. One more story illustrating how to enter the kingdom of God before Jesus enters Jerusalem and submits Himself to the crucifixion.   Jesus takes a slight detour on his way to Jerusalem because He has a divine appointment with a sinner in the town of Jericho.  Actually, He had two appointments.  He had an appointment on the outskirts of Jericho with a blind beggar named Bartimaeus who exemplified the desperation necessary for salvation.  We looked at that story last week as Jesus healed Bartimaeus, who Jesus declared was saved because of his faith.

Now coming into Jericho, great crowds are pressing around Him. Jesus’ fame has reached it’s climax and thousands are following Him into Jerusalem where they will throw down palm branches and cheer Him as the Messiah King.  So it says in vs. 1 that Jesus was passing through Jericho.  At least that was how it would seem to the casual observer.  That this was all just chance, circumstance.  Jesus just happened to be passing by.  It says the same thing in the previous chapter about Jesus’ encounter with the blind beggar Bartimeaus.  It would seem as though Jesus was just passing by and Bartimeaus happened to be in the vicinity.  But Jesus doesn’t do anything haphazardly.  God knows what is going to happen before it happens.  He knows who is going to be there before they themselves know.  Some of you here today may think that it’s just happenstance that you happen to be here today.  You just happened to see a sign.  You didn’t really plan on being here.  But let me assure you, God knew you would be here today.   Today, Jesus is passing by.  The kingdom of God is coming near.  The question is how will you respond?

Well, there was a man in Jericho that responded in a dramatic way to the news that   Christ passing by.  The man’s name was Zaccheus.  He was a chief tax collector and was very rich according to vs. 2.  Now we should all be familiar with tax collectors by now.  They were hated by everyone as traitors to their country.  But they were also hated not only because of their politics but because they were unscrupulous.  They extracted more taxes than really were required because the system allowed them to charge a commission.  And so they would charge much more than they should and pocket the overage, and they could get away with this because the Roman government backed them up. But Zaccheus wasn’t just a normal tax collector, that was bad enough, but he was the chief tax collector.  That means he was the regional manager of the tax collectors that worked in that area.  So he was a very rich man, and everyone knew that he made his money by taking advantage of his own people.  He would have been well known, and hated by all.

But  though Zaccheus was very rich, yet implied in this account is the fact that he was very unsatisfied with his life.  His name Zaccheus meant “pure.”  And yet he knew that he was anything but pure. His name must have been the brunt of many a joke in the town as people would have said his name with derision.  It says in vs. 3 that he wanted to see who Jesus was.  Obviously, the fame of Jesus had reached this town.  He had probably already heard about many of Jesus’ miracles long before He healed the blind beggar outside of town.  Chances are he heard of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead just a few months before in Bethany which was just down the road a ways.   People were saying that never a man spoke like this Man spoke.  People were wondering aloud if Jesus was indeed the Messiah.

So the implication in this passage is that Zaccheus was miserable in his sin.  His riches had not made him happy.  He was the chief of sinners, and he knew it.  And he was miserable.  But somehow he understood that Jesus offered more than just physical healing, Jesus offered spiritual healing; hope of reconciliation with God.  And Zaccheus knew that he needed spiritual healing. Under the system of Judaism, tax collectors were not even allowed in the synagogue or the temple.  They basically were unredeemable people in the eyes of the religious establishment.  And so he had no recourse for his sinfulness.  But when he hears Jesus is passing through his town, he is desperate to see him.

Now there was one other characteristic of Zaccheus that we are all familiar with.  Zaccheus was very short in stature.  He was vertically impaired.  That probably was a point of considerable suffering for him.  The abuse that he must have suffered from being short may have contributed to him choosing a career path such as he had.  I heard somebody describe Zaccheus once as looking kind of like Danny Devito, the actor.  And I’ve had that image stuck inside my head ever since.  Now you have it too.  But I don’t know if he really looked like that.  But I’m sure that his stature only added to the derision that people felt towards him. But though he might have overcome his stature in the business field, yet amongst the crowd that day he was unable to see Jesus over the shoulders of the townspeople.

Vs. 4 “So he ran on ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree in order to see Him, for He was about to pass through that way.”  Now this reveals the desperation that Zaccheus felt.  He was a man that occupied a pretty exalted position in the community.  He was well known.  And he was already the object of derision.  But this man must have been so desperate to see Jesus that he could care less what people thought about him.  He could care less that climbing a tree would make him the laughing stock of the town.  He just wanted to see Jesus.

You know, I was thinking the other day about the world’s version of beauty.  There is more money spent by the average woman today on makeup and beauty products and treatments in one year than is probably spent on an entire family’s groceries in many third world countries.  My daughter was telling me the other day about a mascara that is very popular right now that costs $60.  And yet people will pay almost any price if something promises to help you achieve beauty.  But the standard of beauty that the media puts out there is so distorted and unrealistic.  Unfortunately a lot of us buy into it, and if we don’t see ourselves as measuring up to that standard, then we become disillusioned, we feel disenfranchised from society.

Thankfully, God doesn’t see us that way.  We are all precious in His sight.  As we have been studying Genesis on Wednesday nights we have heard repeatedly that God created us in His image, in His likeness.  David said in Psalm 139 that “I am fearfully and wonderfully made.”  Listen, I have news for you.  None of us are perfect.  Not even the airbrushed models in the magazines are perfect.  But God is not concerned about our outward appearance.  God is concerned about our hearts.  And God loves us regardless of how we may appear to the world.  He loves us in spite of our deficiencies.  God made you for a purpose.  He knew you when you were still in your mother’s womb. He loved you even before you were born.  Jesus didn’t look at Zaccheus the way his neighbors did.  Jesus saw his heart, and he saw a heart that was mourning over his sin, and seeking after righteousness. Jesus saw a soul worth saving.  And Jesus says in vs. 10 that He came to earth to seek and to save those that are lost.  Jesus came to seek and to save those that are disillusioned, that are disenfranchised.

So Jesus comes directly under the tree that Zaccheus is sitting in and He looks up at him and says, “Zaccheus, hurry and come down, for today I must stay at your house.”  I think it is amazing that upon hearing Jesus call out his name, that Zaccheus didn’t fall right out of the tree.  Here’s this guy that is hated by everyone, despised, and literally looked down upon as a despicable human being, and yet Jesus not only stops and talks to him, but He knows his name.  And not only does He know his name, Jesus says He must come to stay at his house.

Listen, if you met a stranger walking down the street, and they came up to you and called you by name, wouldn’t you be amazed?  Wouldn’t you wonder what else they knew about you?  Zaccheus must have realized that if Jesus knew his name, then he knew everything else about him too.  For he had never met Jesus.  And yet Jesus knew his name.  I’m sure that when Jesus looked Zaccheus in the eye and called out his name, he knew that Jesus could see right through him and knew all about him.

Did you know that God knows your name?  Do you know that God knows where you live, what you do inside your house, what you do and say and think when you are alone?  Do you know that God knows your innermost thoughts?  And yet even though God knows you, He knows every sin that you have done, yet He still desires you to be reconciled to Him.  He still wants your company, your fellowship, your love.  What an amazing thing!  That the Holy, Righteous Creator of the Universe wants you, to love you, and to have your love be for Him.  Did you know that is why God created you?  God created mankind to be the bride of Christ.  To be like Him, in His likeness, made in His image, to be a helpmate to Him as Eve was to Adam.  And to make it possible for sinful man to be united with Him, God made Jesus a sacrifice for our sins, that we might be made righteous and holy too, so that we would be a suitable mate to His Son.

I don’t know about you, but if Jesus said to me that I was to come down from the tree because He was coming to stay at my house, I would want to make a quick phone call home and see if I couldn’t get the place straightened up real quick first.  I would want to run ahead and hide a few things in the closet before Jesus got there.  Wouldn’t you?  If Jesus were to follow you home from church today, would you be ashamed of what He might see there?  How about if He decided to spend the night?

Yet Vs. 6 says that Zaccheus climbed down from the tree and received Him gladly.  Listen, the difference for Zaccheus was that he wasn’t hiding anything.  He realized that Jesus already knew everything about him.  And Zaccheus was willing to have Jesus come home, he was glad to have Jesus come home with him, because Zaccheus was sick and tired of being sinful and wicked.  He knew that Jesus had already seen his sinfulness and wickedness.  He had nothing to hide.  He had already opened his heart to Jesus.  Now he gladly opened his house to Jesus.  He was ready to receive Jesus as Lord, and that meant that he was ready to clean house.

How about you?  Are you ready to clean house?  Are you ready to empty out the closets that are hiding your secret sins?  Have you ever really opened your heart, realizing that God sees the secrets of men’s hearts?  If you really believe that, if you are truly mourning over your sin and hungering for righteousness, then you should be glad to receive Jesus into your house.  Let Him cleanse you from every sin and stain, from every impure thing.  Listen, there is great joy in knowing forgiveness.  Of confessing and repenting of your sins and knowing God forgives you.  Zaccheus meant pure.  But up to now he had been impure, unholy, unrighteous.  But when Jesus came in to his heart, Zaccheus was finally pure.  And when a person really gets their heart right, then their house gets right too.

By the way, I came across an interesting historical note attributed to Clement of Alexandria, one of the church fathers.  Clement said that Zaccheus became a very prominent Christian leader and ended up a pastor of the church in Caesarea, later to be succeeded by none other than Cornelius, the centurion.  That may be the reason that Zaccheus is named by Luke.  By the time that Luke writes this gospel, Zaccheus may have already been well known as a church leader.

Now as an interesting side note  Luke reveals in vs. 7 the fickleness of the crowd. When they saw Jesus go off with Zaccheus, they all began to grumble, saying, “He has gone to be the guest of a man who is a sinner.” Like I said, the same crowd that is fawning after Jesus in Jericho ends up throwing palm branches and calling out “Hosanna!” in Jerusalem a few days later.  But then a few days after that it’s the same crowd that calls out “crucify Him!”  Popular opinion is fickle, it’s temperamental.  Jesus doesn’t ever go out of His way to please a crowd or to attempt to draw a crowd.  In fact, He often seems to go out of His way to show that the crowd is drawn to the broad way that leads to destruction, but few are they that find the narrow way that leads to eternal life.  Popularity and great crowds are never a barometer of spiritual truth, ladies and gentlemen.

Now I’m sure you can’t help but notice that there seems to be a lot of information missing between vs. 6 and vs. 8.  Obviously, vs. 8 illustrates that Zaccheus was converted.  But the details are missing.  Under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Luke seems to jump from Jesus announcing that He is coming to spend the night with Zaccheus to Zaccheus’s statement of how he will right the wrongs he has committed.

And yet I think that this is purposely written this way to provoke the reader to ask a very important question.  The question is this:  How do we validate salvation? I have been a pastor of this church now for 8 years, and I have been in Christian ministry many years before that.  But even though I spend my life trying to tell people what it means to be saved, sometimes I feel like I am completely inadequate to even lead someone to Christ.  I can tell them all the things that they need to understand, all the elements, all the doctrines, and yet I cannot ensure that they are really, truly saved.  Sometimes I don’t really know whether they have truly been transformed or not.

And so I ask myself this same question; how do we evaluate salvation?  Is it by some emotional response to the gospel?  If someone cries and has an emotional response, is that an indication that they are saved?  Or is it like the charismatics claim?  Does one tell a Christian by the fact that they had a charismatic, ecstatic experience?  How is real salvation to be evaluated?

 Well I think that the answer is found right here in the example of Zaccheus.  The validation of salvation is found in the evidence of true repentance.  I think the Holy Spirit deliberately leaves out all the details of what Jesus must have said to Zaccheus.  He deliberately leaves out the details of what kind of prayer that Zaccheus might have prayed, or what his emotional state might have been.  Instead, the Holy Spirit focuses our attention on Zaccheus’ contrition.  See repentance is so much more than simply saying I’m sorry, or even feeling sorry.  Repentance is doing a 180 degree turn and going the other direction.  Repentance is not just being forgiven for your sins, but turning from your sins, and as we see in the case of Zaccheus, even making restitution for your sins.  Now that is a novel concept in 21st century evangelical Christianity, I know.  But that is the result of salvation that we see in this passage, and I think it is at the heart of the gospel.  

You see, Jesus went into the house of a sinner, but He came out of the house of a saint.  That is the transformation of salvation.  Salvation is conversion, from the heart of a sinner, to the heart of a saint.  From a  son of the devil, to a son of God.  From a worker of evil, to a worker of righteousness.  That is the result of transformation and the mark or evidence of salvation.  That is what James 2 is talking about when he says, “I will show you my faith by my works.”

See, Zaccheus is presented here in stark contrast to the rich young ruler of the last chapter.  The rich young ruler thought he was righteous, he did good deeds, but Jesus revealed that his heart was evil because he had made money his idol.  But this man who knew he was a sinner, was desperate to be converted, Jesus reveals his heart is evil and he repents.  And then he shows his repentance by his works; he makes restitution for his sins to the point of becoming bankrupt.

Listen to vs. 8, “Zaccheus stopped and said to the Lord, "Behold, Lord, half of my possessions I will give to the poor, and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will give back four times as much."  I mean, I’m not very good at math, but I can figure out that if you give half of your money to the poor, and with the other half you give all the people that you defrauded in your life 4 times what you took from them, the end result is going to be bankruptcy. Especially in the case of the chief of tax collectors.  This guy made his money defrauding people.  And so the only reason he doesn’t do what Jesus told the rich young ruler to do in the last chapter – that is, sell everything and give it to the poor- the only reason he doesn’t do that is that he knows that he needs to make right the people that he defrauded first and that is going to take half of his money.  Then the other half he will give to the poor.  Then he  is going to be broke.  But though he may be broke, he is going to be right with God and right with his fellow man.  Listen, you can’t say you are right with God and yet hate your husband, or your neighbor, or cheat someone in business.  So the scripture indicates that Zaccheus gladly exchanged his sordid life for righteousness from God, even if it meant that he had to lose everything to gain it.  That’s a good definition of a citizen of the kingdom of God, by the way.  Someone who gladly gives up self rule to submission to the rule of Christ in their lives.

Some of you, if you are paying attention, are saying to yourself right about now, “boy, this is starting to sound just like all of Roy’s other sermons.  You have to give everything up to enter the kingdom.  You have to forsake everything to be a disciple of Christ.  Doesn’t Roy know any other sermon?  Isn’t there any other way to be a Christian?”  Well, if that is your attitude then I am afraid that I am going to disappoint you once more.  You can have no other god before our God.  Money can’t be your god.  Career can’t be your god.  Your wife or husband  or boyfriend can’t be your god. Anything that you put ahead of God is an idol. A false god.  And the first commandment is that you shall have no other gods before Me.

You may say, but wait a minute Roy, you just quoted the law.  And we’re under grace now, we’re not under the law.  Really?  Well I would like to point out to you the effect of grace.  Zaccheus was saved by grace through faith, the same way we all are, the same way Abraham was, by the way.  The same way Moses was and everyone that has been saved in human history.  All are saved by grace through faith.  But grace doesn’t eliminate the law, it satisfies it.  It even goes beyond it.  That’s illustrated by the fact that Zaccheus doesn’t just come up with this figure of repaying four times what he defrauded out of his imagination.  No, Zaccheus, sinner though he was, knew the law.  Zaccheus knew that in Exodus 22 the law required that if you robbed someone by a breach of trust, then double restitution was required.  Zaccheus doubles that.  Grace doesn’t permit him to forget about the law, but grace provokes him to go twice as far as the law required.  Grace doesn’t exempt you from doing what is right.  Grace just exempts you from the penalty for doing wrong.

The law not only convicted Zaccheus of his sin, but it revealed the requirement of repentance and restitution.  It revealed the attitude of a heart that desired to be right with God.  Paul said that the law was good, if one used it lawfully.  But the law was given to show us our sinfulness, and to show us our need for a Savior.  The law shows us the standard of God’s righteousness.  The difference under grace is that we now have the penalty of the law removed, so that we do not die for our sins, but we are forgiven our sins and cleansed of all unrighteousness.  The difference under grace is that having been credited with Christ’s righteousness, we are now given the Spirit of Christ to live in us that we might do the works of righteousness by the strength that He provides.  God describes that process of salvation in Ezek. 36:26-27 "Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 "I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances.”

That is the power of a transformed life, by the way.  It is the power of the testimony that you who were a sinner, a dirty rotten scoundrel, have been made into a new creature, old things are passed away.  But your testimony to the world of God’s saving power is that you now give where you once took, share instead of being greedy, love instead of hate, do good instead of evil.  That’s the testimony of the saved.  That’s the evidence of a transformed heart.

Now Zaccheus’ statement of repentance elicits an amazing response from Jesus.  Vs. 9 And Jesus said to him, "Today salvation has come to this house, because he, too, is a son of Abraham.”  Zaccheus is saved.  Why?  Because he is a son of Abraham.  What does that mean?  Well, I alluded to it just a minute ago.  Abraham is the father of faith.  Saving faith. Paul says in Gal. 3:6-7 “Even so Abraham BELIEVED GOD, AND IT WAS RECKONED TO HIM AS RIGHTEOUSNESS. 7 Therefore, be sure that it is those who are of faith who are sons of Abraham.”

Listen, what does it mean to have faith, to believe?  What does it mean to have saving faith?  I will tell you.  It doesn’t mean that you merely believe that God exists, or even that Jesus exists.  The Bible says that the demons also believe and they are not saved.  Faith means trusting in Christ as your Lord.  As the Lord of your life.  Trusting Him enough to surrender everything to follow Him.  To discard every treasure for the sake of knowing the greatest treasure; to know that you are forgiven.  Trust Him enough to forsake your sins. Trusting that God has justified you by the blood of Jesus Christ shed as the Passover Lamb upon a cross as your substitute.  The kind of faith that will turn away from everything that the world says is valuable, for the sake of knowing Jesus as Lord.

Do you have that kind of faith?  If you do, then your conversion ought to resemble that of Zaccheus.  Your repentance should stir you to make things right with those you have wronged, and give up everything that hinders you from following Christ every day, with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength and all your might.  No more idols.  No more hidden closets.  Everything laid out for His inspection.

Listen, today Jesus is passing by.  You happened to be here.  But it is not by chance.  Jesus wants you to come down off your ivory tower of respectability, and invite Him into your house, welcome Him to stay with you, not just for the night, but for the rest of your life.  Jesus said in Rev. 3:20 'Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him, and he with Me.”  What is your response to Jesus?  He is passing by.  Do not let Him leave without seeing Him today, without surrendering to Him today.

Jesus said in vs. 10 in our text, "For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost."  Jesus is passing by today.  He came seeking you, the lost.  Will you invite Him to come home with you today?  He is here now. Don’t miss this opportunity. You don’t know when He might come this way again.  Today is the day of salvation.  Let’s pray.

The ultimate sacrifice, Luke 18: 31-43

On the 17th of March, 2010, a SEAL team 6 squadron of special operators were attempting to take out an enemy that was barricaded inside a compound in Afghanistan. Among the special operators involved in the mission was Adam Brown, a man that had overcome tremendous obstacles in his life such as drug addiction as the result of accepting Jesus as his Savior. In the years following his conversion, he had continued an uphill battle against all sorts of difficulties and physical impairments in order to eventually be accepted as a member of one of the most elite fighting forces in the world.  And he did so while maintaining his testimony as one who had been redeemed by the power of Christ to save.  On this particular night, the U.S. Forces mission was in grave danger of being compromised.  They were engaging the enemy in a fire fight, and a number of their team had become pinned down by very heavy fire from the enemy compound. In an effort to protect his men, Adam Brown left the safety of his position and  charged the enemy to gain a better vantage point, drawing fire away from his pinned down comrades and placing himself in the direct line of fire. His selfless action relieved the attack on his men, but unfortunately the action resulted in Adam being struck by enemy fire. One other member of  his team was  also wounded, but Adam’s heroic action saved the rest of his team.   However, tragically, Adam Brown paid the ultimate sacrifice as the result of his wounds.  He left behind a wife and two young children.  There is a book written about Adam called Fearless, that will be coming out in the near future as a movie.  The producers say that they will not diminish the Christian testimony that Adam had.  I hope that it will be a way to expand Adam’s impact for the Lord to millions of people as the Lord continues to use his life as a witness for the gospel.

We rightly hold up such men as Adam Brown as the finest examples of heroism.  Jesus Himself said that “greater love has no man than this, than a man lays down his life for his friends.”  We often talk about our Christianity in terms of God loving us, and our love for God.  But I wonder how far are we willing to take that kind of love?  Christ loved us so much that He was willing to become the ultimate sacrifice for us.  But the question I put to you today is are you willing to lay down your life because of your love for Christ?

So I have entitled today’s message as The Ultimate Sacrifice.  And this message should be viewed in the context of the passage immediately before in which the rich young ruler was unwilling to sacrifice his riches and possessions which defined his life in order to follow Christ and enter into eternal life.  And in response to that tragic response to the gospel, in  vs. 28  Peter says, "Behold, we have left everything and followed You." And Matthew records that Peter adds to that statement, “what then shall there be for us?” 

Jesus answers in vs. 29 that “Truly I say to you, there is no one who has left house or wife or brothers or parents or children, for the sake of the kingdom of God, who will not receive many times as much at this time and in the age to come, eternal life.”  In other words, there will be an eternal reward for those that are willing to make earthly sacrifices for the sake of the kingdom of God. 

Now in that context of sacrifice, Jesus takes the 12 disciples apart from the crowd and tells them that He is going to give Himself as the ultimate sacrifice.  He says in vs. 31, “Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and all things which are written through the prophets about the Son of Man will be accomplished.  For He will be handed over to the Gentiles, and will be mocked and mistreated and spit upon,  and after they have scourged Him, they will kill Him; and the third day He will rise again.”

But the disciples don’t understand what He is talking about.  Vs. 34 “But the disciples understood none of these things, and the meaning of this statement was hidden from them, and they did not comprehend the things that were said.”  Luke says the same thing three different ways I think to emphasize the utter lack of comprehension concerning the purpose and plan of the Messiah.  He says they couldn’t understand it, they couldn’t see it, and they couldn’t comprehend it.  In other words, they didn’t have a clue what He was talking about.

Now the problem wasn’t that Jesus wasn’t making Himself clear, the problem was that what Jesus was saying didn’t mesh with their theology.  They had their Messianic theology all worked out.  All Jews knew what the rabbis taught concerning the coming of the Messiah.  Their theology taught that when the Messiah comes, He would be a king in the line of David, and He would take back the throne of Israel.  He was going to conquer all the enemies of Israel.  He would bring prosperity and blessing back to the Jews.  They believed that Israel would then take it’s place as the reigning nation of the world and all the other nations would come bow down to them. 

The thing is, they had so many scriptures that seemed to back up that theology that I cannot even begin to show them to you this morning.  We don’t have time.  But practically half of the Psalms speak of this King who will crush all their enemies and rule over the world and bring peace to Israel.  I’ll just give you an example from Isaiah and you can follow this on your own if you are so inclined. Isaiah 9:6-7 “For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us; And the government will rest on His shoulders; And His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace. 7 There will be no end to the increase of His government or of peace, On the throne of David and over his kingdom, To establish it and to uphold it with justice and righteousness from then on and forevermore. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will accomplish this.”

So the disciples have a big problem with what Jesus is saying.  That’s why Luke says it three different ways that they couldn’t understand it.  Their theology didn’t allow for a suffering Savior.  They believed in a conquering king.  And so Jesus announcing that He was going to be arrested and killed must mean that He is not really the Messiah.  And that is a real problem for them, because they have left their homes, their families and their jobs in order to follow Him, in hope that when He comes into His kingdom, they will sit on thrones on his right hand and left hand and judge the nations with Him.  They think that they have too much invested in this guy to see Him get killed off.

The problem is that they don’t include all the scriptural prophecies in their theology, because they have a theology that they particularly like and they don’t fit the template.  They like their prosperity and blessing theology just fine.  But no one likes the suffering and dying theology.  So all the scriptures that talked about suffering and dying they somehow had spiritualized or just out right ignored for the sake of their theology.

Folks, I hope you are getting the picture here.  I hope you are catching the analogy.  Because the modern church today has it’s own pet theology as well.  And the God of the Bible doesn’t really always mesh with our theology.  The Christian experience that we like to promote and believe in is often at odds with the Christian experience that is taught in the Bible.  I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news.  But I’m just telling you what the Bible says.  I’m telling you what Jesus says.  And I’m afraid that the truth of the gospel has run afoul of a lot of so called evangelical Christian’s theology.  So the dilemma that a lot of people have is do we continue to worship our pet view of God, the God that we think is going to work everything out for us so that we never have to get sick, we never have to suffer, we never lose our possessions, we never go bankrupt, we never get persecuted… or do we pick up our cross and follow Jesus Christ to the cross? 

Do I need to remind you of the words of Jesus in Luke 9:23-24  “And He was saying to them all, "If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me. 24 "For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake, he is the one who will save it.”

Now Jesus references that the prophets spoke of the sufferings that were prescribed for Him.  And I just want to share a couple of them with you, just so you know what He was talking about.  I told you while ago that many references are found in the Psalms that speak of the Messiah being a conquering King.  But we have to be careful not to cherry pick our way through the scriptures, claiming the ones we like and discarding the ones we don’t.  The Jews should have considered for instance Psalm 22 which speaks of the sufferings of Christ. Psalm  22:1-2 “My God, my God, why have You forsaken me? Far from my deliverance are the words of my groaning.  O my God, I cry by day, but You do not answer; And by night, but I have no rest.”  It goes on to say in vs. 14 “I am poured out like water, And all my bones are out of joint; My heart is like wax; It is melted within me.  My strength is dried up like a potsherd, And my tongue cleaves to my jaws; And You lay me in the dust of death. For dogs have surrounded me; A band of evildoers has encompassed me; They pierced my hands and my feet.  I can count all my bones. They look, they stare at me;  They divide my garments among them, And for my clothing they cast lots.”  All of that would be fulfilled at the cross.

Or perhaps they should have not only considered Isaiah 9, but also Isaiah 53; 3, “He was despised and forsaken of men, A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; And like one from whom men hide their face He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. Surely our griefs He Himself bore, And our sorrows He carried; Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, Smitten of God, and afflicted. But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, And by His scourging we are healed.”

Now why was Jesus taking them aside to tell them that He must suffer and die?  I believe it was because Jesus was on His way to the cross.  He was deliberately, methodically going according to the plan predetermined in eternity past, that He would offer Himself as a sacrifice for the sins of the world.  He would be the substitute for those that would trust in Him for the forgiveness of their sins.  This was the plan of God from eternity past.   On the day of Pentecost after Jesus’ resurrection, Peter would make that exact point in his message.  In Acts 2:23 he says,  “this Man, delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put Him to death.”

Perhaps what the disciples fail to realize is that the earthly ministry of Jesus Christ is coming to a close.  He is on His way to Jerusalem.  It is the Passover season and people are joining them from the various regions and there is this huge entourage of the multitude that will sweep into Jerusalem with Jesus riding on a donkey’s colt and they will call out “Hosanna, to the Son of David; BLESSED IS HE WHO COMES IN THE NAME OF THE LORD; Hosanna in the highest!”  It’s going to seem like to the disciples that Jesus is on His way to receiving the kingdom, He is about to be coronated, and yet within a few days that very crowd that called out “Hosanna!” will cry out, “away with Him, crucify Him!” 

They do not realize that He is about to hand over the dispensation of His kingdom, the stewardship of His kingdom to them.  That He will be crucified and buried, and in three days He will rise from the grave and a few weeks from then He will ascend to His Father in Heaven.  They don’t understand that He will entrust the kingdom to them, and that they will have to suffer the same hardships that He suffered.  As the apostle Paul said in Phil. 3:10 “that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death.” 

Jesus knew that they would indeed join with Him in the fellowship of His sufferings.  Peter would be hanged upside down on a cross.  James would die at Passover as well just 11 years later than Jesus.  Andrew would be crucified.  Matthew was killed by the sword.  James the son of Alpheus was thrown from the temple and then clubbed until he died. Thomas was killed with a spear.  Matthias, who took the place of Judas was beheaded as was the apostle Paul. 

I’m sure that some of you sitting here today are thinking, yeah, but that was the apostles.  They were specially picked out by Christ for that role and they will get special recognition in heaven.  But that is not for us.  They did that so that we could live the victorious life of blessing and health and wealth. I’m afraid that this false thinking has overtaken even the elect.  I’m afraid that we have forgotten that we are all called to be disciples.  And that we are called in the great commission to make disciples.  I’m afraid that we are short selling Christianity today as a pie in the sky and eat it here too type of religion that requires no sacrifice on our part, no suffering. We are told it’s all supposed to be joy and peace here on earth. 

I would just like to briefly remind you of what Jesus had to say about discipleship.  He said in Matt. 10:24 "A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a slave above his master.”  In Matt. 10:34-38  "Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. 35 "For I came to SET A MAN AGAINST HIS FATHER, AND A DAUGHTER AGAINST HER MOTHER, AND A DAUGHTER-IN-LAW AGAINST HER MOTHER-IN-LAW; 36 and A MAN'S ENEMIES WILL BE THE MEMBERS OF HIS HOUSEHOLD. 37 "He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. 38 "And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me.”

He taught His disciples in Luke 14 that must count the cost if they were to enter the kingdom of God.  He said in Luke 14:33 “So then, none of you can be My disciple who does not give up all his own possessions.”  He said in Matt. 10:22 "You will be hated by all because of My name, but it is the one who has endured to the end who will be saved.” 

Listen, I am afraid that we have short sold the gospel of Jesus Christ.  We have told everyone that it doesn’t cost us anything to come to Christ when Jesus Himself says that it will cost you your life.  It will cost you your family.  It may cost you your home.  It may cost you your possessions, your riches.  I will guarantee you one thing it will cost;  it will cost you your idols.  Whatever it is that you are holding onto.  Whatever it is that you are not willing to renounce for the sake of the kingdom. 

But you say, wait a minute!  What I am holding onto isn’t a sin.  It’s not something that the Bible says is a sin.  Well, there is no law against being rich is there?  Yet, because the rich young ruler was not willing to obey Christ and sell everything and follow Him, he revealed it was an idol.  He put his riches above following Christ.  And he went away sad because he knew that because he made his possessions his god that disqualified him from the kingdom of heaven. 

Listen, Jesus made the ultimate sacrifice for us that we might make the ultimate sacrifice for Him.  What is that, you ask?  It is surrendering your soul, your life, your ambitions, everything surrendered to the authority, the Lordship of Jesus Christ.  That is what discipleship requires.  Everything. 

Jesus makes it clear in Mark 8 that salvation requires complete trust and faith in Christ.  Not just a feeling, but acting on that faith by surrendering everything to follow Him.  Surrendering your will, your life, your all for Him.  That is the only way to receive eternal life and become a disciple.  And discipleship is a daily process of crucifixion, of crucifying your life for His life lived in you. [Mar 8:34-37 NASB] 34 And He summoned the crowd with His disciples, and said to them, "If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. 35 "For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel's will save it. 36 "For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and forfeit his soul? 37 "For what will a man give in exchange for his soul?”

Now let’s look in closing at a simple illustration that Luke gives of a person who exemplifies leaving everything to become a disciple and gain eternal life.  As Jesus is heading towards Jericho on His way to Jerusalem, there is a blind beggar sitting by the road.  Mark tells us this man was named Bartimeaus.  Undoubtedly he was a fixture in the community.  He probably had his spot by the gate that he sat at and begged everyday.  A blind man in that day had very little other resources, there would have been no welfare system.  He was helpless, living on the street and begging.  All he had would have been the cloak on his back that served as his coat and his bed.  And the blind man heard the commotion, he heard the crowd following Jesus and he asked someone what was going on.  And they told him that Jesus of Nazareth was passing by.  And this blind man hearing that springs into action.  He begins crying out to Jesus in a loud voice.

Now this blind beggar illustrates the exemplary components of what it means to become a disciple of Christ.   First of all, notice that this man is desperate.  He realizes that he has no other hope. There is no possible cure for his blindness.  Jesus is the only hope he has.  So he yells as loudly as he can.  And when they tell him to shut up he just screams all the louder.  He is absolutely desperate.  That marks the kind of desperation that is required for those seeking eternal life. 

Secondly, he is a beggar.  That is a direct illustration of the principle Jesus presented in the Sermon on the Mount;  He said blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God.  The word used there actually references the act of begging.  Of being helpless, hopeless, totally dependent on the kindness and mercy of someone else.  So desperation and recognizing that you are spiritually bankrupt, a beggar.

Thirdly, He says, “Jesus, Son of David.”  He has his theology right.  They told him it was Jesus of Nazareth, but he calls out “Jesus Son of David.”  It’s a Messianic title.  He calls Jesus his  King. And then He calls Him “Lord.”  Kyrios.  It is a word for deity, but it also means Master, Sovereign, Possessor of All Things.   This guy knows that Jesus is the Son of God and is willing to surrender everything to Him. 

Fourthly, he says, “have mercy on me.”  This is an indication that he comes in repentance. He comes asking for mercy.  Mercy is not getting what you deserve.  He is asking Christ to be merciful.  To not give him what he deserves as a result of his sinfulness. 

And fifthly, he recognizes that he was blind.  When Jesus asks him what do you want Me to do for you?  He answers, “I want to regain my sight.”  He knows he is blind.  Now that may seem obvious, but the fact is that most people are not saved because they don’t recognize that they are lost.  I said last week that though it was sad that the rich young ruler went away from Jesus without being saved, yet at least it was good that he went away having been confronted with the fact that he was a sinner.  Listen, you have to realize that you are a sinner before you can be saved.  You have to know that you are lost.  And when you come to that realization and in desperation come to Jesus as your only hope of salvation, and call on Him in faith and repentance than He will save you.  This man not only recognizes that he  is blind, but he recognizes that Jesus is the source of life.

So when Jesus hears him calling to Him He calls Bartimaeus to be brought to him.  And the blind beggar throws off his cloak, gets up from the gate where he has been sitting for years and comes to Jesus.

Jesus says to him in vs. 42, “Receive your sight; your faith has made you well.”  Actually, the translators don’t do this justice.  Literally it is your faith has saved you.  The Greek word is sozo, it means saved.  Listen, Jesus didn’t need people’s faith to heal them.  Jesus healed demoniacs, dead people (He brought them back to life).  He healed people with faith and without faith.  He says that your faith has saved you.  You may not need faith to be healed but you need faith to be saved, don’t you? Eph. 2:8  “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God.” [Heb 11:6 NASB] 6 And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him.

And then look quickly at the conclusion of this man’s salvation. Luke 18:43 “Immediately he regained his sight and began following Him, glorifying God; and when all the people saw it, they gave praise to God.”  This blind beggar becomes saved, and then immediately he becomes a disciple.  He leaves everything and begins to follow Jesus. He has no interest in going back to the squalor of the beggar’s corner by the gate.  He doesn’t put back on the filthy rag that was his cloak.  He is given sight and wants nothing more to do with the kind of life that he had before.  He knows there is nothing of value there. He realizes that Jesus is the source of life and therefore follows Him completely, leaving behind everything that once defined his existence.  And what was done in his life by the transforming power of Jesus Christ causes people to glorify God.  That’s the power of discipleship.  That’s the result of following Christ. 

Maybe you are asking, Well, Roy, what does it mean to follow Christ?  How is that done on a practical level? The purpose of our salvation is to make us like Christ.  To be molded in His image. [Rom 8:29 NASB] 29 “For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren.”  God gives us the Spirit of Christ to live in our redeemed earthly bodies, that we might have the power to become conformed to His image, that Christ may live in us.  It is dying to ourselves, so that the Holy Spirit may live through our bodies.

On a practical level that means being obedient to His word; walking in accordance with the Holy Spirit who leads us by the word of God.  What He tells us to do in His word we do. Eph 2:10 “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.”  And Romans 12: reminds us that even as Christ laid down His life for the kingdom, so God requires of disciples that we also lay down our lives for the kingdom.  Rom 12:1  “Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.”  And that process can be painful as we join in the fellowship of His sufferings.  Paul goes on to say in 2Tim. 2:3-5  “Suffer hardship with me, as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. 4 No soldier in active service entangles himself in the affairs of everyday life, so that he may please the one who enlisted him as a soldier. 5 Also if anyone competes as an athlete, he does not win the prize unless he competes according to the rules.”  

Listen, there is a prize, a reward for those that suffer with Christ, that leave everything to follow Him.  Jesus told the disciples back in our text in Luke 18, “Truly I say to you, there is no one who has left house or wife or brothers or parents or children, for the sake of the kingdom of God, who will not receive many times as much at this time and in the age to come, eternal life.”  I hope that you will seek the eternal reward that God has prepared for those that love him above all else.  I pray that your eyes may receive sight, so that having seen Jesus, you realize that He is the prize worth surrendering everything to follow.

A great question, a great candidate, a great sorrow, and a great hope; Luke 18:18

The other day I was surfing through you tube and came across a compilation of television commercials from the 1970’s.  Some of them were pretty funny.  Or at least the hairstyles were funny.  But some of you that are from my generation may remember this one in particular.  There were these business men on a plane, and one man leaned across the aisle in conversation with another man and said something to the effect, “Well, my broker is EF Hutton, and EF Hutton says…”  And all the business men on the plane stop what they are doing and  lean over to hear what EF Hutton has to say.

I’m sure that all of us can identify with that situation. We can all imagine a situation where we might have an opportunity to meet some great person and talk to them about something that is very important to you.  If you are a golfer, for instance, and you could sit down and talk to Tiger Woods and ask him any question that you wanted to ask, what would you say?  What would be the most important question you could ask him if you had the opportunity?

Well, there was a similar opportunity that happened in this account recorded here in the 18th chapter of Luke.  Jesus is passing by, and a young man hears of it and he wants nothing more than to get a chance to ask Jesus an important question.  In fact, I would suggest that it is the most important question that any man could ask.  In the parallel account in Mark 10 it says that he came running up and knelt before Jesus.  This guy was sincerely looking to find an answer to what is the greatest question that anyone could ask.  So he comes running up and asks Jesus in Luke 18:18, ““Good Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?”

Now that is the right question.  And he seems to have the right attitude. He runs to Jesus.  That shows a desperation to know the truth.  Mark says he kneels before Jesus, showing reverence.   And thirdly, he comes to the right source.  He comes to Jesus.  Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life.”  He is the right source for life’s greatest questions.

Not only did he ask the right question and come with the right attitude to the right source for truth, but this man is the right kind of candidate, isn’t he?  I mean, this guy is a pastor’s dream.  Matt. 19’s account says that the man was young and he was rich.  Luke says that he was a ruler, probably a ruler of the synagogue.  This guy was the perfect candidate for the kingdom of God, wasn’t he?  He was the kind of guy that many modern churches have reinvented themselves to attract;  he is what they call a seeker.  People that are supposedly seeking God are the new frontier for the modern seeker friendly church.  They have completely reformatted the church today in an attempt to reach this type of person. They have removed all the things that these people might find offensive.  People that supposedly are interested in Jesus, or religion, but are turned off by traditionalism and are looking for a new type of church.  Those kind of churches would love this guy.  He was young.  That seems to be a necessary component of anyone that seeks to be a worship leader, by the way.  You have to be young, and it’s a real plus if you are a hipster.

Secondly, this guy was rich.  That is a big benefit to the local church.  Boy, if we could just get a few rich people in our congregation that would be something.  Then we could really get our ministry going.  And thirdly, he was a ruler of the synagogue.  That meant that he already had a full working knowledge of the Bible, God, and all the praise songs.  He was a prime candidate for Jesus.  He was eager, he was seeking, he was asking the right questions, he was young, and he was rich.  Couldn’t ask for a better candidate.  I would expect Jesus would just sweep him right into the kingdom and give him a leadership position really quickly to make sure that He kept him.  Don’t let that guy get away.

But let’s see how Jesus responds to this greatest of questions.  Vs. 19, “And Jesus said to him, ‘Why do you call Me good? No one is good except God alone.’”  Wait a minute.  That’s Jesus answer?  He isn’t answering the question at all.  Isn’t that more of a rebuke?  Jesus doesn’t even answer the guy, but instead He rebukes him. He practically offends him. Why doesn’t Jesus tell this guy that He just needs to have a relationship with Him?   Why doesn’t He say that he just needs to believe in Him?  Why didn’t He lead him in the sinner’s prayer?  You know, if I didn’t know better I would have to say that Jesus failed Evangelism 101.  The modern church would have had him saved, baptized and on some kind of leadership committee in no time flat.

But, if you have noticed as we have been going through Luke,  Jesus rarely answers a question directly. And in this case He answers it with another question.  He uses the man’s question to prompt a question on His part, in order to lead the man to a right understanding.

So let’s look at Jesus’ question first.  Jesus said, “Why do you call Me good? No one is good except God alone.”  Now Jesus is teaching two things here.  First of all, He is not denying His deity as some have suggested.  But what Jesus is saying is if you are going to call Me good, then you have to realize that I am God incarnate.  If I am not God incarnate, then I am not good.  So He is forcing this religious man, who knows the scriptures, who knows the law, to recognize that either He is God in the flesh or He is not good.  He cannot be good and not be God.  So Jesus is using this question to affirm His deity.  Jesus was either God in the flesh, or He was the greatest fraud to ever walk the planet and deserved to be executed.

Secondly, Jesus is teaching that no man is good.  That’s what He says, “No one is good except God alone.”  Paul says that very thing in Romans 3:10-12 “as it is written, "THERE IS NONE RIGHTEOUS, NOT EVEN ONE; 11 THERE IS NONE WHO UNDERSTANDS, THERE IS NONE WHO SEEKS FOR GOD; 12 ALL HAVE TURNED ASIDE, TOGETHER THEY HAVE BECOME USELESS; THERE IS NONE WHO DOES GOOD, THERE IS NOT EVEN ONE."

Now for us that are Christians, that should be a familiar principle.  We may not think about it much, but I hope you have at least heard it a few times. But when you think about it, if you were to tell someone that they are not good, that sounds like a harsh statement, doesn’t it?  Can you imagine if you met someone on the street and said to them, “You are plain no good.”  That’s a very harsh statement by any standard of etiquette and especially in today’s climate of political correctness.  For goodness sakes, don’t say it to a child either, you might stunt his development.

But that is exactly what Jesus is telling this guy.   This man comes running up to Jesus, I think with all sincerity, but I also think with a great deal of pride in his own goodness. I think he really expects Jesus to make some kind of announcement like “never in all of Israel have I seen such great faith,” or something to that affect.  He expects Jesus to affirm his goodness, to tell him don’t worry, you are going to be in the kingdom because the kingdom belongs to sincere people like you.

So the third thing that Jesus is teaching is that good is a relative term.  Now don’t get me wrong.  I’m not preaching a gospel of relativity.  But what I am saying is that good can only be defined as good as it relates to something that is not good. In other words, it needs some standard for goodness, some norm in order to determine goodness. Paul says in 2 Cor. 10:12 that when we judge by ourselves and compare ourselves among ourselves we reveal that we are without understanding.  We like to  grade ourselves on a curve.  Compared to so and so we think we are good.  But the standard the Lord uses for goodness is God’s righteousness.

And that brings us to the next statement by Christ.  He brings this man’s attention to God’s standard of righteousness which is the law.  Vs. 20 Jesus says,  "You know the commandments, 'DO NOT COMMIT ADULTERY, DO NOT MURDER, DO NOT STEAL, DO NOT BEAR FALSE WITNESS, HONOR YOUR FATHER AND MOTHER.'"

Well, this is another major mistake on the part of Jesus.  This guy comes wanting to know what he must do to have eternal life, and Jesus not only rebukes him, and then offends him, but now he turns him to the commandments.  Is Jesus really telling this guy that the way to eternal life is by keeping the law? Matthew 19’s parallel story actually  adds that Jesus says, “but if you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments.” Now how are we to understand that statement?

Well the fact of the matter is that God’s law is eternal, because God is eternal.  God is unchanged from the God of the OT.  He is the same yesterday, today and forever. The law reveals sin on the one hand, while revealing righteousness on the other.  The law is the standard of God’s righteousness.  It is the standard of goodness.  That is what Jesus is saying.  But God gave the law, Paul said, not to provide a stepladder to heaven, that somehow if we can keep it would give us eternal life, but the law was given to us as a tutor, to show us our sinfulness, to lead us to Christ.   If there is no sin, then there would need to be no Savior.  Jesus said He came to seek and to save those that were lost.  Those that are sinners, outside of the kingdom of God.

So in Matthew’s version, the ruler asks, “Which ones?” Which commandments?  And Jesus responds with what is called the second table of the law.  The Decalogue, or the ten commandments have been traditionally divided into two sections.  The first half is man’s relationship to God, and the second half is man’s relationship to man.  Jesus gives him the easier part first, the second half of the law.

And you can almost imagine that the young ruler breathes a sigh of relief.  He says in vs. 21, “All these things I have kept from my youth.”  Now up to this point we have noticed a lot of things this guy has done right; he has eagerness, he has reverence, he has the right attitude, he asks the right question.  But now he gives the wrong answer.  His answer reveals that he has a wrong understanding of the law.

Jesus knows this man’s heart.  That really is the key to understanding this dialogue.  You have to realize that Jesus knows this guys heart before he ever opens his mouth.  And Jesus could have easily listed all the ways in which this guy had broken every commandment.  After all, Jesus showed the extent of the law in the Sermon on the Mount.  He said in Matthew 5 at the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount, “I have not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it.”  He also said, that “if your righteousness does not surpass the righteousness of the Pharisees you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.”  So when Jesus explained the law in that message, He said that the extent of the law went so far as to say that if you hated your brother, you were guilty of murder.  And if you looked at a woman to lust after her then you were guilty of adultery.  Jesus knew full well that this man had a short sided view of the law.

But Mark’s version adds an interesting note in Mark 10:21, “Looking at him, Jesus felt a love for him. He feels compassion for him because he knows the man is deceived. He doesn’t rebuke the man for a short sided view of the law.  See, the Pharisees actually believed that they did keep the law.  Even the apostle Paul, who was the chief of Pharisees, said in Phil. 3:6 that before he was converted, he considered himself in regards to the law blameless.  The problem was that the Pharisees and the religious leaders of the synagogues had interpreted the law in such a way as to make it possible that they could maintain an external righteousness, but inwardly they were evil in their  hearts.  They had defined the law in the Talmud to provide limitations on the law, ways of getting around it so that externally they appeared righteous, but inwardly their hearts were evil.  But they failed to understand that God cared about the heart, and God sees the heart.

So he not only gave the wrong answer, but he had a wrong view of God.  And this is what Jesus is most concerned about.  That is why he looked at him and loved him.  He has compassion for him.  Because this man is lost.  You know, there is a modern view of God that we have in our churches today that is wrong.  We think God is too little. There is a popular view today that God is only defined by love.  That the love and compassion of God invalidates  all the other attributes of the nature of God.  And so God loves everyone just as they are.  According to modern church theology you can come just as you are to God and He will accept you and love you just as you are.  Therefore, this new age theology cancels out sin.  There is no more sin, no need for repentance, because God just loves you the way you are.

Unfortunately, this wrong view of God is contrary to the God of the Bible.  The God of the Bible is a God of justice and mercy.  But before God’s mercy can be applied, first His justice has to be satisfied.  Sin must be paid for. Sin is clearly defined in the law. And the Bible says that the wages of sin is death. 1John 1:8 says, “If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us.”  God loves you, but God will punish sinners.  The only way to escape that punishment is by repentance and faith in Jesus Christ.  Those that repent of their sins and trust in Jesus as their Lord and Savior, then 2 Cor. 5:21 says that God will place our sin upon Jesus and punish Him, and place the righteousness of Jesus on us and forgive us.

But that doesn’t happen unless we confess and repent of our sins.  Repentance means to mourn for our sin, to renounce our sin, to turn from our sin.  Now this young ruler doesn’t do that.  When confronted with the law, he says, “I’m good.”  I’ve done all that since I was little.  And Jesus knows that the problem is that his view of God is too limited.  He has too high a view of himself, and to low a view of God.

You know, some of my best times to contemplate on the nature of God is when I am surfing.  I particularly like surfing early in the morning.  I think it’s easier to have a small view of God when you are inside your house, reading a book or on your computer.  But when you go outside and look at the wonder of nature; when you consider the vastness of the ocean, teeming with life - when you consider the waves that travel in wave trains thousands of miles sometimes to reach our shores, when you consider the moon’s effect on the tides, when you consider the warmth of the sun at just the perfect distance from Earth to warm us and not fry us, then you should start to get a glimpse of just how magnificent God is.  The diameter of the Earth is 8000 miles from pole to pole.  And yet consider the magnitude of the sun.  Did you know that as enormous as the Earth is, it would take 1.3 million Earths to fill up the Sun?  Isn’t that mind boggling?  What kind of God makes the Sun?  Just that one fact should teach us so much about God. Romans 1:20 “For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.”  And in Psalm 8:3 David says, “When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, The moon and the stars, which You have ordained;  What is man that You take thought of him, And the son of man that You care for him?”

When we get that kind of perspective on the nature of God, then our proper response will be like that of Isaiah, in chapter 6:5  “Then I said, "Woe is me, for I am ruined! Because I am a man of unclean lips, And I live among a people of unclean lips; For my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts."  We would repent in sackcloth and ashes.

Yes, Jesus loved this young ruler.  He was going to the cross for just such as these.  If only they will repent and submit to His Lordship.  So Jesus overlooks for the moment this man’s arrogance and ignorance, and points him to the first law.  He says, “One thing you still lack; sell all that you possess and distribute it to the poor, and you shall have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.”  See the first law says ““You shall have no other gods before Me.”  This young ruler was very rich.  And while it is possible to be very rich and enter the kingdom of heaven, Jesus showed this young man that he had put his riches above God.  He wanted his riches more than he wanted God.  Jesus knew this, and He demonstrated it to this man in a very dramatic fashion.

Jesus said elsewhere that the greatest, foremost commandment was that you were to love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength and with all your might.  That kind of love is the love that God requires.  It’s not an emotional attachment.  It’s not a feeling of love.  It’s a commitment to surrender everything to the Lordship of Jesus Christ.  Like the hymn says, love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my heart, my all.  There is no place for God in second place.  God will not be second.  He demands to be first place in our hearts.

I was talking to a young lady just the other day about her salvation.  She had recently been converted out of a past of drug and alcohol abuse.  And I asked her how she knew that she was saved.  And she started trying to answer it as best she could.  She was still new in her faith and she didn’t know quite how to phrase some things.  But she eventually said, “I finally surrendered.”  And I said, “That’s it.  That’s the word I was waiting to hear.  Surrendered.”  Nothing else matters anymore.  Everything is subjugated to the Lordship of Jesus Christ.  I surrender everything.  I surrender all. That’s salvation.  There is no half way saved.  It’s all or nothing.

So Jesus demanded that this guy prove that he had put no idol before God and sell everything.  Give it all up to follow Jesus.  And the Bible says that he went away sad for he was extremely rich.  This man walked away from Jesus that day knowing that he was a sinner.  It was sad that he walked away.  That he wasn’t willing to give up everything to follow Christ and be saved.  But I will tell you something.  It was better to walk away knowing you were a sinner and rejecting salvation, than to continue to delude yourself into thinking that you were without sin.  You cannot be saved until you realize that you are a sinner and are willing to repent of it.   I’m afraid that most people that will find themselves surprised at being outside of the kingdom of God at the Lord’s return will not be the down and out sinners, but the ones who thought that they were good people, that thought they kept the Golden Rule.  The religious.  That never repented of their sins.

So Jesus watches him walk away and says in vs. 24, "How hard it is for those who are wealthy to enter the kingdom of God! For it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God."  Now this was a familiar proverb that Jesus quotes to the disciples to illustrate the difficulty of a rich person entering into heaven.  We know that earlier Jesus had said that the gate was small, the gate was narrow that led to the kingdom of God and that few there would be that finds it.  That is true for all men.  But Jesus is using this proverb to emphasize that it was even more difficult for a rich man to enter.

I think riches is one of the primary difficulties that we have today in leading people into the kingdom of God.  And that’s because of the affluence that even normal, average Americans have today.  I’m sure that most of you may not think of yourself as rich, but by most of the world’s standards we are extremely wealthy.  But I don’t think it necessarily takes a lot of money for it to become an idol.  I think it just takes a desire for money.  The Bible says that the love of money is the root of all evil.  It’s not a lot of money that is the root of all evil.  It’s the love of money.  And I think a lot of us fall into that category.   So Jesus says it’s extremely difficult for wealthy people to enter the kingdom of God because they value their money more than God.

But when the disciples heard that they were shocked.  They asked in vs. 26 "Then who can be saved?" See, in Judaism, as it is in many evangelical churches today, there was this false theology that equated God’s blessings with riches.  The Talmud actually stated that "Alms giving is more excellent than all offerings and is equal to the whole law and will deliver from the condemnation of hell and make one perfectly righteous.”  That was what they were taught; that riches enabled you to give a lot of money to the synagogue, and that giving would erase yours sins and make you righteous.  So no wonder the disciples were in shock.  If rich people couldn’t buy their way into heaven, then who could enter?

So in vs. 27 Jesus said, "The things that are impossible with people are possible with God."  The point is this: salvation is impossible with men.  It’s impossible to do anything to make yourself righteous.  We can’t keep the law.  We can’t even do righteous deeds that somehow will outweigh our bad deeds because Jesus said that our righteous deeds are done with wrong motives and so therefore not acceptable with God.  The only way to have righteousness is to be supernaturally changed into a righteous person.  And that is impossible for man to do.  But thank God  it’s not impossible with God.  God is able to save.  God is able to transform our hearts.  He is able to grant us repentance and faith.  He is able by His grace to transfer our sins upon Jesus  and transfer His righteousness to us.  God is able to save those that come to Him in faith and repentance for the forgiveness of their sins.

So the rich young ruler went away sorrowful, because he was unwilling to repent of his sins and surrender all to Christ.  But the passage ends with a message of hope.  The disciples front man is Peter.  And Peter speaks up and says, “Behold, we have left our own homes and followed You.”  Matthew 19 adds that Peter said, ““Behold, we have left everything and followed You; what then will there be for us?”  Now Peter was correct, the disciples had left everything and followed him.  They left their businesses, their families, their homes.  They are exemplary of the kind of commitment that God requires of His disciples.  Surrendering everything for the sake of the kingdom.  So the question Peter asks is what hope is there for us that have surrendered everything to follow you?

And Jesus answers him in a way that confirms that there is a hope for those that leave everything.  He doesn’t rebuke them, but He affirms that they indeed have left all to follow Him.  He says in vs. 29, “Truly I say to you, there is no one who has left house or wife or brothers or parents or children, for the sake of the kingdom of God, who will not receive many times as much at this time and in the age to come, eternal life.”  The great hope is backed up by a great promise; the promise of eternal life.

The key to understanding what Jesus is promising there is not by ascribing what we often consider “blessings” to what Jesus is saying.  But the physical things that we sometimes have to give up here, will be more than made up by the spiritual blessings that come from following Christ.  There will be a day when we enter into the eternal life where God makes all things new.  Jesus isn’t promising 100’s of wives, or hundreds of children in the age to come, but many times those type of things in spiritual blessings.  As Paul affirmed in  1Cor. 2:9, “but just as it is written,
“THINGS WHICH EYE HAS NOT SEEN AND EAR HAS NOT HEARD, AND which HAVE NOT ENTERED THE HEART OF MAN, ALL THAT GOD HAS PREPARED FOR THOSE WHO LOVE HIM.”

Just as our finite minds cannot fathom a God that can make the sun and moon and stars, neither can our minds conceive of all that God has prepared for us in the new heaven and the new earth that will come down out of heaven in the age to come.  But I can tell you one thing, it will be worth it all then.  When I was a boy we used to sing a hymn called Worth it all, and the chorus went like this: It will be worth it all, when we see Jesus!  Life’s trials will seem so small  when we see Christ.  One glimpse of his dear face,  all sorrow will erase.  So, bravely run the race  till we see Christ.